PHILOSOPHY AND BELIEF IN GOD:

THE RESURGENCE OF THEISM

IN PHILOSOPHICAL CIRCLES

Francis J. Beckwith 1

Lecturer of Philosophy
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

A new interest in the God of the orthodox Hebrew-Christian tradition

has arisen recently among contemporary philosophers. This new interest in
theism can be traced to the demise of logical positivism, a lack of intellectual
rigor in theological liberalism, and the increased sophistication of theistic
arguments. Two arguments illustrate the many contemporary proofs for
theism that have attracted wide interest. One argues that belief in God is
rational apart from any special evidence. The other, called the kalam
cosmological argument, maintains that everything which begins has a cause,
the universe had a beginning, and therefore, the universe has a cause. This
argument is supported by the reasonableness of a series of choices, beginning
with whether or not the universe had a beginning. These arguments are
satisfying proof of the existence of God for those who are philosophically
inclined.

*****

About twenty-five years ago President James McCord of

Princeton Seminary declared with exuberance that Protestant
theology's Death-of-God movement was ushering in a "whole new era
in theology."2 Nevertheless, Time magazine's ominous front cover,
which asked the question, "Is God Dead?," was not really as prophetic

1Dr.
Beckwith is an Elder and Director of Adult Education in an independent
evangelical church. He earned a PhD from Fordham University. He is author of four
books and about three dozen articles and book reviews. The staff of The Master's
Seminary Journal has chosen to publish this essay, one that differs somewhat from the
nature of our usual subject matter, because we feel the resurgence discussed in the
essay merits special attention. The essay is adapted from lectures delivered at the
University of Nevada School of Medicine's Center for Humanities and Medicine (Sept
14, 1988) and at the University Forum Lecture Series of UNLV (Nov 22, 1988).
2
"Toward a Hidden God: Is God Dead?," Time (Apr 8, 1966) 82 ff.

61
as President McCord had thought, but rather, was more analogous to
the boy who cried wolf or the emperor's non-existent clothes. Only
five years later, Time on its front cover heralded the sudden revival of
evangelical faith among Roman Catholic and Protestant young people
with a psychedelic portrait of Jesus of Nazareth, labeled "The Jesus
Revolution."3 In 1980 Time ran a story about the sudden reexamination
of God within contemporary philosophical circles.4 Although still a
distinct minority in secular universities, since 1980 this movement has
increased in numbers and already shows an increased sophistication of
argument. The reason for and the nature of this resurgence of belief in
God in philosophical circles is the subject under current consideration.

DEFINING THE TERMS

Anyone acquainted with philosophy knows the extreme

importance of how a thinker defines his terms. For the sake of clarity,
"God," "belief," and "philosophy" will be defined. God is the God of the
Hebrew-Christian tradition, the God most Americans know best
through their church affiliation or the practice of their neighbors. He is
a Rational Spirit Being Who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving,
omnipresent, unchangeable, transcendent, and eternal, and the
Personal Creator of all that is. On occasion He may decide to act in
ways called miraculous.
Belief is the act of human consciousness that makes a personal
commitment to a proposition. To believe in something is to have faith
in something that is consistent with what you believe is good evidence,
but the act of belief itself goes beyond the evidence. For example,
marriage is an act of belief. Prior to getting married, you believe you
have sufficient evidence to justify a commitment that goes beyond the
evidence. In another context, you may act on faith by putting 100% of
yourself in a departing airplane, though you are aware that the
evidence for a safe journey is less that 100% certain. When a theistic
philosopher says he believes in God, he does not mean that he has
indisputable evidence to support his commitment. Rather, he means

3"New Rebel Cry: Jesus Is Coming!," Time (July 21, 1971) 56 ff.
4
"Modernizing the Case for God," Time (Apr 7, 1980) 65 ff.

62
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 63

that he is within his intellectual rights in holding this belief. This essay
will examine two important arguments by Christian theists to support
the contention that the theist is within his intellectual rights in
believing in God.
Philosophy is the intellectual discipline which critically examines
the foundations of other fields of study. Philosophy departments in
universities and colleges all over the world aim to examine questions
of fundamental importance in other disciplines, whether in the realm
of science (e.g., do scientific theories tell us about the world?), theology
(e.g., is it rational to believe in God?), or ethics (e.g., what is right and
wrong?).
Unfortunately, many Christians believe that philosophy is
inherently anti-Christian, basing their conclusion on the atheistic or
agnostic orientation of many philosophy professors. Yet many fine
Christian philosophers employ the critical thinking-skills of
philosophy in assessing classical theological issues. In fact, philosophy
can contribute to a Christian's defense of his faith.
For example, suppose you are a theist and someone says to you,
"Okay, you say that God is all-powerful and He can do anything."
You respond, "Yes, that is perfectly correct." Your adversary goes on
to ask, "If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so big that He
cannot lift it?" He appears to have you trapped: if God can make the
rock, He is not all-powerful because He cannot lift it, but if He cannot
make the rock, He is not all-powerful because He cannot make it.
Now if you ponder this carefully, you will see that this dilemma is
really no dilemma at all. You can respond to your adversary, "Since
God is all-powerful, He cannot, by definition, make something that is
more powerful than Himself, including a rock He cannot lift. But He
can make the biggest rock and He can lift it. To ask an all-powerful
God to make something that is more powerful than Himself is similar
to asking Him to create a married-bachelor, a square-circle, or a
brother who is an only child. Such `entities' are simply nonsense."
This is philosophy.
To speak of a resurgence of interest in theological questions
among philosophers is not to imply that such questions ever ceased
64 The Master's Seminary Journal

being asked, but rather that belief in the traditional Hebrew-Christian

view of God is being discussed with more vigor and sophistication
than ever before in the modern world by those who believe in such a
God. Philosopher Roderick Chisolm of Brown University has pointed
out that in the last generation atheistic empiricists such as Harvard's
Willard V. O. Quine were most influential because "they were the
brightest people." Chisolm notes that now the "brightest people
include theists, using a kind of tough-minded intellectualism," which
was formerly nonexistent in the theist's camp.5
Some representative twentieth-century philosophers such as
William James, Josiah Royce, Charles Saunders Peirce, Alfred North
Whitehead, and John Dewey showed strong interest in God and
religious questions, but did not accept the God of the orthodox
Hebrew-Christian tradition as a viable option. Neither did they feel
He could be defended with rational argument. This situation has
changed. A recent Christianity Today article cites the example of the
Society of Christian Philosophers, with over eight hundred members
as being "now the largest special interest group within the American
Philosophical Association," which is the leading professional society of
American philosophers.6
In addition to new innovative arguments by leading theist
philosophers, arguments thought to have died during the
Enlightenment are being rehabilitated by some of the greatest
philosophical minds. These are people, not only in the Roman
Catholic and conservative Protestant colleges and universities, but also
in some of the leading secular institutions. A perusal of the
Philosophers' Index reveals a significant increase of articles and books
about theism, God, and philosophy of religion in the last twenty-five
years. Philosophical arguments about traditional theological problems
such as the incarnation of Christ, the Trinity, the relation between
body and soul, and the possibility of miracles (issues that are bypassed

5
Ibid., 65.
6Kristine Christlieb,
"Suddenly, Respect: Christianity Makes a Comeback in the
Philosophy Department," CT 31 (Apr 17, 1987) 32.
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 65

by most mainline theologians who are busy trying to be relevant) are

discussed with respect and serious interest by theistic and non-theistic
philosophers alike.
One example of this is the book by Thomas V. Morris,
philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame, entitled The
Logic of God Incarnate (Cornell University Press, 1986). He shows
effectively and persuasively that the Christian belief that God became
man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is perfectly logical. For
workers among false cultists such as Jehovah's Witnesses and The Way
International, this kind of treatment is extremely helpful in responding
to those who question the rationality of the orthodox doctrines of the
Incarnation and the Trinity.
Three main reasons explain traditional theism's comeback in
philosophy: (1) the demise of logical positivism, (2) the lack of
intellectual rigor in theological liberalism, and (3) the increased
sophistication of theistic arguments.

THE DEMISE OF LOGICAL POSITIVISM

Logical positivism was a philosophical position which asserted

that only what can be verified by the five senses or is true by definition
(e.g., mathematics or tautologies) can be said to have meaning. This
was called the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning. Of course, since God
is neither an empirical entity nor something that is true by definition,
the term "God" is meaningless, according to the positivists. The other
side of the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning is the Principle of
Falsifiability, popularized by Antony Flew's famous essay, "Theology
and Falsification." Flew challenged the believer in God by asking,
"What would have to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of
the love of, or of the existence of, God?" Flew wrote, "It seems to
people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or
series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by
sophisticated religious people to be sufficient reason for conceding
66 The Master's Seminary Journal

`there wasn't a God after all' or `God does not really love us then.'"7
To explain his position, Flew employed John Wisdom's parable
of the gardener:

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the
clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says,
"Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees. "There is no
gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen.
"But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence.
They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H.
G. Wells's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could
not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder received a shock.
No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds
never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener,
invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent
and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden
which he loves." At last the Skeptic despairs, "But what remains of your
original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible,
eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no
gardener at all?"8

Flew said the Believer in God is like the Believer in the

Gardener. Since nothing is capable of falsifying or disproving his belief
in God, this belief is meaningless.
While this sort of thinking is somewhat widespread on a
popular level (e.g., Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, etc.), logical positivism
has suffered a philosophical death. Philosopher of science Del Ratzsch
outlines problems with the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning, the
cornerstone of logical positivism:

First, it fails as a description of what is considered meaningful scientifically.

Some basic principles essential to science are not empirically testable. For
example, we cannot establish by experiment that nature is uniform, and that the

Antony Flew, "Theology and Falsification," New Essays in Philosophical Theology

7

(ed. Antony Flew and Alasdair MacIntyre; New York: Macmillan, 1955) 98-99.
8Ibid., 98.
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 67

principle is not obviously analytic, either. But uniformity is a presupposition

without which scientific tests would be pointless. Second, the verifiability
principle fails when applied to other sorts of specific examples. For instance,
moral truths are not matters of empirical tests. We cannot (it is widely held)
empirically test the wrongness and sinfulness of murder, but to claim`as some
positivists did`that such moral principles are cognitively empty is outrageous
both philosophically and morally. Finally, the Verifiability Criteron of Meaning
is self destroying. Is the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning itself empirically
testable? Clearly not. . . . But if the criterion itself is neither empirically
testable nor analytic, then either it is itself meaningless (in which case we
needn't further bother about it) or else meaningfulness does not depend on
empirical testability and analyticity, in which case the Verifiability Criterion is
false (and we needn't bother further about it).9

As for Flew's Principle of Falsifiability, it is merely a version of

the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning10 and falls under the same
criticism. Furthermore, most sophisticated believers in God challenge
Flew head-on and admit possible defeaters to belief in God`such as the
inconsistency of God's existence and the existence of evil, the
demonstration that the universe is not radically contingent, or that the
concept of God is internally incoherent`but they contend that they
have adequately responded to these possible defeaters.11 As Plantinga
has with tongue-in-cheek pointed out,

If after death I were to meet Father Abraham, St. Paul, and St. John (I think I
could recognize them), who united in declaring that they had been duped,
perhaps I should have sufficient reason for conceding that God does not love us

9Del
Ratzsch, Philosophy of Science (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986) 37-38.
10
Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1968) 162.
11E.g., ibid., 161: Plantinga writes, "My discovering a contradiction in the
proposition God exists would constitute a disproof of it." See also Alvin Plantinga,
"Reason and Belief in God," The Intellectuals Speak Out about God (ed. Roy Abraham
Varghese; Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984) 199; Norman L. Geisler and Winfried
Corduan, Philosophy of Religion (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988).
68 The Master's Seminary Journal

after all.12

The demise of logical positivism included the disappearance of

the dogma of scientism, the belief that only what is scientifically
testable is true. Hence, the metaphysical door once again opened for
serious philosophical discussion about the rationality of belief in God,
the existence and nature of God, and the nature and content of
religious experience. Before this open door is discussed, a second
reason for the resurgence of traditional Hebrew-Christian theism
should be addressed: the lack of intellectual rigor in theological
liberalism.

LACK OF INTELLECTUAL RIGOR

IN THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM

Many conservative scholars welcome philosophy's renewed

interest in articulating and critically discussing the philosophical
implications of traditional orthodox Christian doctrines, but many
mainline theologians have not put out the red carpet. In a recent issue
of Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers,
Gordon Kaufman, a liberal theologian at Princeton University, claimed
that the reason why theologians like himself are disinterested in recent
philosophy of religion is that Christian philosophers assume the
plausibility of traditional theistic concepts which clearly conflict with
the pluralism and epistemological and moral relativism
enthusiastically embraced by contemporary theologians.13
Kaufman's defense of this view is poorly reasoned, however,
and is typical of some theological works that attempt to interact with
philosophy.14 His weak presentation provides further evidence of

Other Minds 161.

12Plantinga,

Gordon Kaufman, "`Evidentialism': A Theologian's Response," Faith and

13

Philosophy 6 (1989) 35-46.

14See Francis J. Beckwith, "Identity and Resurrection: A Review Article," JETS 33

(Sept 1990) 369-73, for a further illustration of such an attempt.

 Resurgence of Theism . . . 69

why Christians interested in feasting on a diet of intellectually

rigorous discussions of classical theology are not tempted by
Kaufman's invitation to a famine. In a response to Kaufman, Christian
philosophers Stump and Kretzman take him to task by showing
clearly that a dose of critical thinking can expose the philosophical
incoherence of what appears to be "profound" theological insights.15
First, they respond to Kaufman's claim that Christian
philosophers have ignored religious pluralism, the belief that no one
religion is ultimately true and that rejection of religious pluralism
entails social intolerance and lack of sympathy for other religions.
Stump and Kretzman note that "since Kaufman's position must reject
as false all claims made by Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other
religions to know" true things about God's nature and human
salvation, therefore, "if lack of sympathy and disrespect are inevitable
concomitants of the rejection of religious claims, as Kaufman seems to
think, then his position is no more sympathetic and respectful than
traditional Christianity with regard to other religions, but less."16
Second, Kaufman defends epistemological and ethical
relativism on the basis of "the growing awareness of the way in which
all our ideas are shaped by the cultural and symbolic framework of
orientation within which we are living and thinking."17 But, as Stump
and Kretzman note, Kaufman does not hesitate to condemn the
Holocaust and other actions as inherently evil, claim to know that
"God is beyond our understanding and knowledge," and assert that
God is "that ultimate mystery in which both our being and our
fulfillment are grounded."18 If epistemological and ethical relativism
are "true," then "Kaufman is ambivalent or inconsistent in his
agnosticism and skepticism, unwittingly abandoning those attitudes
when he has a point to make."19 For instance, when Kaufman claims
15
Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzman, "Theologically Unfashionable
Philosophy," Faith and Philosophy 7 (July 1990) 329-39.
16Ibid., 332.
17
Kaufman, "`Evidentialism'" 42.
18Ibid., 44.
19Stump, "Theologically Unfashionable" 44.
70 The Master's Seminary Journal

that God's nature is beyond our knowledge, he is in fact making a

knowledge-claim about God's nature, "namely, that God's nature has
the property of being unknowable to us. But if Kaufman is able to
know one property of God's, his claim falsifies itself."20
Furthermore in condemning the Holocaust and other moral
atrocities as inherently evil, Kaufman implies that there exists some
non-culture-dependent hierarchy of values. If he denies this, his
criticism of atrocities such as the Holocaust, not to mention
epistemological relativism itself, is reduced to nothing more than ideas
shaped by cultural orientation. According to this reasoning, ethical
and epistemological relativism are more likely than their opposite to
produce the mind-set tolerating atrocities such as the Holocaust.
Moreover, as an ethical and epistemological relativist, how can
Kaufman criticize Christian philosophers for pursuing their interest in
traditional orthodox Christian theology? Are not the ideas of
Christian philosophers "shaped by the cultural and symbolic
framework of orientation within which" they "are living and
thinking?" Where is Kaufman's sympathy for this "alternative religious
movement?" Stump and Kretzman add more, but these criticisms
suffice.
The sort of argumentation in Kaufman's article is typical of
much liberal theological literature. For this reason, philosophers, who
are typically more sensitive to critical thinking skills than those in
other disciplines, have found nothing logically incorrect in pursuing
rigorous intellectual discussions of traditional theological topics,
although in certain theological circles such topics, like last year's
designer gowns, may not be fashionable.

INCREASED SOPHISTICATION OF THEISTIC ARGUMENT

Traditionally, four different arguments used to defend the

reasonableness of believing in God's existence have been the
teleological, the moral, the ontological, and the cosmological.

20Ibid.
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 71

Philosophers have also defended belief in God by appealing to

miracles, revelation, religious experience, and possible solutions to the
problem of evil. Christian philosophers have now revived many of
these traditional approaches with unparalleled intellectual rigor and
sophistication. A detailed overview of these efforts would require an
entire book, so this discussion will limit itself to distilled versions of
two contemporary arguments for theism that have attracted
considerable interest: (1) Alvin Plantinga's defense of rationality of
belief in God apart from evidence, and (2) William Lane Craig's kalam
cosmological argument.

Rationality of Belief in God

Plantinga, a Calvinist who holds an endowed chair in the

University of Notre Dame's philosophy department, argues that belief
in God is rational apart from any evidence, although he does hold to a
version of the ontological argument which he believes is plausible.21
He argues against what he calls the evidentialist objection to
belief in God.22 Evidentialists, such as the positivists, argue that unless
a proposition is either fundamental to knowledge or based on
evidence, one is not rationally justified in believing the truth of that
proposition. Hence, according to eventialism, since the proposition
"God exists" is not foundational to knowledge, it is not rational
without sufficient evidence to believe that God exists. However,
Plantinga asks why the proposition "God exists" cannot be
foundational to knowledge and thus not in need of evidence. The
typical evidential response is that only properly basic propositions are
foundational to knowledge. But how can one know which
propositions are properly basic? The evidentialist usually replies that
the only properly basic propositions are those which are self-evident

21Alvin
Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 111-12.
22
Plantinga has presented his position in several texts and articles. An easily
accessible article is, "Is Belief in God Rational?," Rationality and Religious Belief (ed. C.
F. Delaney; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979) 7-27.
72 The Master's Seminary Journal

and incorrigible. An example of a self-evident proposition is, "All

squares have four sides." "I feel pain" exemplifies an incorrigible truth,
because even if my pain is imaginary, it is nevertheless incorrigibly
true that I do feel pain. Hence, it follows that since the proposition
"God exists" is not self-evident or incorrigible, it is not properly basic.
Since it is not properly basic, one needs evidence if he wants to believe
in God. Therefore, the evidentialist concludes that belief in God apart
from evidence is irrational.
Plantinga responds by asking how one knows that self-evident
and incorrigible propositions are the only ones that are properly basic.
Cannot the believer in God show the evidentialist that the proposition
"only propositions that are self-evident and incorrigible" is itself not
properly basic, since it is neither self-evident nor incorrigible? Neither
is it supported by evidence. Furthermore, many things in life are
rational to believe in apart from evidence. For example, belief that the
world was not created ten minutes ago with all the appearances and
memories of a world that is billions of years old is a perfectly rational
belief for which no evidence exists.23 Therefore, the evidentialist's
criterion is inadequate, and he cannot rule out the possibility that
belief in God is properly basic. Plantinga writes that the evidentialist's
criterion

is no more than a bit of intellectual imperialism. . . . He commits himself to

reason and to nothing more; he therefore declares irrational any noetic structure
that contains more`belief in God, for example, in its foundation. But here there
is no reason for the theist to follow his example; the believer is not obliged to
take his word for it. So far we have found no reason at all for excluding belief
in God from the foundations; so far we have found no reason at all for believing
that belief in God cannot be basic in a rational noetic structure. To accept belief
in God as basic is clearly not irrational in the sense of being proscribed by
reason or in conflict with the deliverances of reason. The dictum that belief in
God is not basic in a rational noetic structure is neither apparently self-evident

23
I.e., how does one know that his senses and memory are accurate unless he
presupposes as properly basic their reliability? He cannot use them to prove this
without begging the question.
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 73

nor apparently incorrigible.24

Obviously, many theists as well as non-theists do not fully

accept Plantinga's argumentation, but he, with the intellectual tough-
mindedness that Roderick Chisolm described, has put the non-theist
on the defensive with his highly influential philosophy of religion.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Many theists besides Plantinga offer proof for God's existence.

A recent argument that has gained a hearing among philosophers is
William Craig's kalam cosmological argument.25 In fact, in his magnum
opus against theism, The Miracle of Theism,26 the eminent atheistic
philosopher J. L. Mackie wrote a response to the argument only three
years after Craig's initial development of the argument was published.
One of the major reasons Mackie saw a need to respond was
probably the kalam argument's uniqueness to Western philosophy of
religion.

The kalam cosmological argument gets its name from the word kalam, which
refers to Arabic philosophy or theology. The kalam argument was popular
among Arabic philosophers in the late Middle Ages. Christian philosophers
during that period did not generally accept the argument, perhaps due to the

24Ibid., 26.
25Craig has
detailed this argument in numerous places, but his most extensive
presentation of it is The Kalam Cosmological Argument (Library of Philosophy and
Religion; New York: Macmillan, 1979). He responds to objections to his initial work
in Apologetics: An Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1984) 73-93; "Creatio ex Nihilo,"
Process Theology (ed Ronald H. Nash; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987) 41-73; and
"Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument," RelS 20 (1985) 367-75.
Other objections to the kalam argument are answered by J. P. Moreland (Scaling the
Secular City [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987] 18-42), Francis J. Beckwith (David Hume's
Argument Against Miracles: A Critical Analysis [Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 1989] chap. 5,), and Francis J. Beckwith and S. E. Parrish, The Mormon
Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis [Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991] 54-59).
26J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982) 92-95.
74 The Master's Seminary Journal

influence of Aquinas, who following Aristotle, rejected it. A notable exception

was Saint Bonaventure, a contemporary of Aquinas, who argued extensively for
the soundness of the kalam argument.27

The kalam argument can be put in the following form:

1.Everything which begins to exist does so through a cause.

2.The universe had a beginning.
3.Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Another way of looking at this argument is as a series of

dilemmas, the form to be followed in the present discussion:28

universe

beginning no beginning

caused not caused

personal not personal

This argument presents a series of alternatives. First, the

universe either had a beginning or it did not. Second, if the universe
had a beginning, then it was either caused or uncaused. Third, if the
beginning of the universe was caused, then this cause was either
personal or impersonal. By showing one part of each alternative to be
more reasonable than the other, this argument shows the
reasonableness of believing in the existence of a personal Creator, God.
A brief examination of each alternative follows.
(A) Alternative one: Is it more reasonable to believe that the
universe has a beginning or that it does not have a beginning? Craig
has developed four arguments which he believes support the

27
Moreland, Scaling 18.
28Diagram taken from William Lane Craig, "Philosophical and Scientific Pointers to
Creation ex Nihilo," Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 32 (Mar 1980) 5.
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 75

contention that the universe must have had a beginning.29 The

argument that is philosophically strongest proceeds in the following
way:30

1. The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member

after another.
2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be
actually infinite.
3. Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite.

The first premise can hardly be disputed. When one thinks of a

series of events in time, he does not think of them as happening all at
once, but as happening one after another. For example, despite the
tasteless jokes at bachelor parties, one's wedding and one's funeral do
not happen at the same time. The first precedes the second (with
many years between them, hopefully).
In the second premise, it must be admitted that an infinite set of
numbers is one that is complete and cannot be added to, e.g., the
infinite set of natural numbers {1, 2 . . . 10 . . . 1,000,000 . . .}. This set
contains an unlimited number of digits from 1 to infinity. However,
since an actual infinite is a complete set with an infinite number of
members, the series of events in time cannot actually be infinite,
because the series of events in time is always increasing (being added
to) and one can never arrive at infinity by adding one member after
another. The following example should help demonstrate this.
If you were on Interstate 15, driving from Los Angeles to Las
Vegas with 280 miles to traverse, you will no doubt eventually arrive
in Las Vegas. On the other hand, if you were to drive on Interstate 15
from L. A. to Las Vegas with an infinite number of miles to traverse,
you would never arrive in Las Vegas. If you did arrive in Las Vegas, it
would only prove that the distance was not infinite. Since an infinite
number is unlimited, one can never complete a journey of an infinite
29
See Craig, Kalam.
30William Lane Craig, The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe (San
Bernardino, CA: Here's Life, 1979) 49.
76 The Master's Seminary Journal

number of miles. When this is applied to the universe, a certain

absurdity develops: if the universe had no beginning, then every
event has been preceded by an infinite number of events. But if one
can never arrive at infinity by adding one member after another, he
could never arrive at the present day, because to do so, he would have
to "traverse" (or complete) an infinite number of days to arrive at the
present day. Philosopher J. P. Moreland explains in his recent defense
of the kalam argument:

Suppose a person were to think backward through the events in the past. In
reality, time and events within it move in the other direction. But mentally he
can reverse that movement and count backward farther and farther into the past.
Now he will either come to a beginning or he will not. If he comes to a
beginning, then the universe obviously had a beginning. But if he never could,
even in principle, reach a first moment, then this means that it would be
impossible to start with the present and run backward through all the events in
the history of the cosmos. Remember, if he did run through all of them, he
would reach a first member of a series, and the finiteness of the past would be
established. In order to avoid this conclusion, one must hold that, starting from
the present, it is impossible to go backward through all the events in history.
But since events really move in the other direction, this is equivalent to
admitting that if there was no beginning, the past could have never been
exhaustively traversed to reach the present.31

Since the premises of this argument seem plausible, the

conclusion follows that the series of events in time cannot be actually
infinite. This being the case, it seems more reasonable to believe the
horn of our first dilemma which states that the universe had a
beginning.
(B) Alternative two: Is it more reasonable to believe that the
universe was caused or uncaused? Since the overwhelming testimony
of human experience testifies to the fact that something cannot arise
from nothing, once it is established that the universe began to exist, the
reasonable person would no doubt have to affirm that the universe has

31Moreland, Scaling 29.

 Resurgence of Theism . . . 77

a cause. Perhaps one could still affirm that it is logically possible that
the universe began uncaused, but this does not appear to be
metaphysically possible. Therefore, it is more plausible that the
universe was caused if it had a beginning.
(C) Alternative three: Is it more reasonable that the universe
has a personal cause or an impersonal cause? Arguing that this cause
is personal, Craig asks, "How can a first event come to exist if the cause
of that event has always existed? Why isn't the effect as eternal as the
cause?" For example, "if a heavy ball's resting on a cushion is the cause
of a depression in the cushion, then if the ball is resting on the cushion
from eternity, the cushion should be depressed from eternity." But
"the only way to have an eternal cause but an effect that begins at a
point in time is if the cause is a personal agent who freely decides to
create an effect in time."32 It is like a man at rest for all eternity who
may will to create a work of art. "Hence, a temporal effect may be
caused by an eternally existing agent."33
Concurring with Craig, Moreland presents the following
example:

If the necessary and sufficient conditions for a match to light are present, the
match lights spontaneously. There is no deliberation, no waiting. In such
situations, when A is the efficient cause of B, spontaneous change or mutability
is built into the situation itself.
The only way for the first event to arise spontaneously from a timeless,
changeless, spaceless state of affairs, and at the same time be caused, is this`the
event resulted from the free act of a person or agent. In the world, persons or
agents spontaneously act to bring about events. I myself raise my arm when it is
done deliberately. There may be necessary conditions for me to do this (e.g., I
have a normal arm, I am not tied down), but these are not sufficient. The event
is realized only when I freely act. Similarly, the first event came about when an
agent freely chose to bring it about, and this choice was not the result of other
conditions which were sufficient for that event to come about.34

32
Craig, Apologetics 93.
33Ibid.
34Moreland, Scaling 42.
78 The Master's Seminary Journal

Therefore, the only solution to this problem is to conclude that

this cause willed the universe to come into existence at a temporal
moment, and since "will" is an attribute of a rational or personal agent,
this cause must be personal. Though it is possible that the cause of the
universe is impersonal, it is more plausible to affirm that it is a
personal agent. In conclusion, the defenders of the kalam argument
believe they have shown that it is perfectly rational to believe in the
existence of a personal Creator of all that is. If the premises of this
argument are correct, and its detractors have offered no persuasive
reason that they are not, the theist possesses a strong argument for
affirming God's existence.
 Resurgence of Theism . . . 79

CONCLUSION

No doubt, the intellectual battle between belief and unbelief

will continue. But what is amazing about the recent resurgence of
theism is that it started at a time when God's death had been
pronounced, the coroner was preparing for the autopsy, and the
smugness of the infidels permeated the landscape of secular
orthodoxy.
Some people may say that God is looking down and is amused
at the feeble attempts of philosophers to demonstrate the rationality of
belief in Him to a world in which so many people, completely
unaware of the cosmological argument or any other theistic proof, still
believe and trust in God.
Yet such absolute cynicism about the human mind seems
inconsistent with a truly robust faith. For if God does exist (and I
certainly believe that he does) and has given us minds and hearts with
which to think and feel, it is axiomatic that He would be concerned
with every minute detail of our intellectual and emotional existence.
He would consequently permit the simple to feel secure in a simple
faith grounded in an infinitely complex God and those more
philosophically inclined to find intellectual satisfaction in the study of
an infinitely complex God who is personally encountered only
through an act of simple faith. Regardless of whether one finds the
resurgence of theistic philosophy disappointing or encouraging, he
cannot deny that it is an important and fascinating part of our
contemporary intellectual surroundings.